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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27831811">bitter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_rook/pseuds/red_rook'>red_rook</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, F/F, Lots of alcohol, remember when frat parties were a thing before corona LMAO</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:48:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,555</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27831811</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_rook/pseuds/red_rook</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>catra and adora hook up at a frat party but it's Complicated and there are Feelings</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adora/Catra (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>97</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>bitter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The frat house is packed. The line to the door stretches past the yard down into the street, and Adora can tell Glimmer is getting more and more antsy and irritated with every passing minute.</p><p>“We’re both girls and we’re hot as hell, why aren’t they letting us in?” she complains, for what is probably the seventh time in the past five minutes. </p><p>“We don’t have an in,” Adora points out helpfully. They had both done three shots of vodka in order to pregame, but it had been long enough, and the outside air cold enough, to where the buzz was starting to taper off. </p><p>“Ugh!” Glimmer rounds on her. “We’re doing this for <em> you </em>, you know! Between the two of us, it’s you who’ve been cooped up in your room for a week moping about your breakup, not me!”</p><p>Adora sighs. Her relationship with Tara, a senior on the football team, had been short-lived, but it had been a gut-punch when Tara had broken things off to focus on her MMA side gig, where she was known as ‘Huntara’. “I wasn’t just moping, you know. I was studying for biochemistry and polisci. Which, by the way, is something you should be doing too, since our polisci test is in a week.”</p><p>This, however, just makes Glimmer groan louder. “I get it, Miss Future Doctor Double Major, but please take the stick out of your ass for a <em> second. </em>My God. You act like you’re thirty when you’re barely nineteen.”</p><p>Before Adora can figure out a comeback, a voice behind her stops her in her tracks.</p><p>“Hey, Adora.”</p><p>Her heart stops. She whirls around, and holy shit, it’s <em> her.  </em></p><p>“Who are <em> you? </em>” Glimmer is saying to the girl who had been Adora’s world for the first sixteen years of her life.</p><p>After Adora and Catra had parted ways three years ago, they had seldom seen each other since. But every time they’d crossed paths, the memory was burned into Adora’s mind. Inside a Chipotle. In a cafe. At a frat party half a year ago, when Adora had impulsively gone out partying by herself after a bad fight between her and Glimmer. The last time they had crossed paths, Catra had made Adora match her shot for shot with gin. They’d both ended up puking. It had been perfect for what Adora had wanted out of that night: to numb herself from feeling the thousands of things that had spilled out messily from the fallout with Gilmmer.</p><p>Tonight, Catra looks <em> good. </em>Her hair is short, now, and close-cropped. Her skin is the same golden-brown as always, and her eyes are the same strikingly fractured amber and blue hues Adora remembers. She’s dressed simply, in black and red, effortlessly sultry.</p><p>Catra mockingly puts a hand to her heart, as if offended. “You haven’t told your shiny new friends about me? Adora, I’m hurt.”</p><p>“Is this your ex or something?” Glimmer presses.</p><p>“Ha! She wishes.” The taunt, so Catra-esque as it is, brings Adora back to life.</p><p>“Annoying as ever, I see,” she retorts. For a second, a shadow passes over Catra’s face, and Adora is ripped back to the day she’d left foster care, the day Catra had screamed that she would never forgive Adora for abandoning her and a hundred other things, each one a scar in Adora’s heart that had never quite smoothed over. But then it’s gone, and there is only a mask of indifference on Catra’s face in its place.</p><p>“I heard you guys bitching about not getting into this lame-ass party. Come with me, I know one of the frat bros.”</p><p>“Who?” Adora asks. <em> Is it her boyfriend? </em>she wonders, and then immediately chastises herself for it. It wasn’t any of her business. That was one common theme every time the two of them crossed paths: their lives were secret to each other now, an invisible barrier constructed in order to maintain civility.</p><p>“Kyle. He’s an idiot, I think they only let him in because they felt sorry for him.” Catra glares at them. “Well? Are you coming or not, princess?”</p><p>Adora flinches at that. It’s an old nickname that had been used many times as a weapon, a sign that Adora is in danger. But she follows Catra anyway. What other choice did she have?</p><p> </p><p>---------------------------------</p><p>
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</p><p>“Drink up,” Catra orders, two solo cups in her hand. Adora takes one. It’s filled halfway with what tastes like coconut rum. </p><p>“I didn’t know you were into rum.”</p><p>Catra spreads her hands magnanimously. “I’m a pirate. Did you really expect anything else?”</p><p>Glimmer had abandoned them a short while ago to talk to some of the frat brothers. When Adora made a move to follow her, Catra had grabbed Adora’s wrist. Her touch was like electricity, turning Adora’s heartbeat into a staccato. Catra had smirked at Adora’s reaction. </p><p><em> Can’t resist me, can you, princess? </em>those two-toned eyes seem to taunt, but all Catra had said out loud was “Chill, these guys aren’t bad. Sparkles will be fine.”</p><p>“Glimmer,” Adora had corrected her. </p><p>“Whatever.”</p><p>Now they’re standing on the balcony in silence that becomes thicker with some unnamed tension the more prolonged it is. Catra is gazing steadily, compellingly, into Adora’s eyes. Adora is entranced, and she really shouldn't be. She is dangerously close to doing something she knows she'll regret.</p><p>“I didn’t know you went to our university,” Adora offers weakly. It wasn't a lie; she hadn’t. Catra had blocked her on everything after Adora had left. Adora had noticed a year later that Catra had unblocked her, but had never worked up the courage to reconnect, fearing an explosion.</p><p>“I don’t. I go to a state school nearby. Couldn’t afford some prissy liberal arts place like here.” Catra’s voice is measured, but there’s cutting bitterness behind her words. Adora can feel it. “It’s cold as balls out here. Let’s go inside.”</p><p>“To dance?” </p><p>Catra snorts. “I don’t wanna see your dorky awkward white people dancing, thanks. Let’s go upstairs.” She grabs Adora by the wrist again, dragging her up a staircase. </p><p>“Aren’t we not allowed up here?” Adora protests. </p><p>“Could you not be lame for like, ten seconds?” Catra picks an empty room that has nothing in it but a sofa and some beanbags. From her bag she pulls out a water bottle filled with something that was decidedly not water.</p><p>“What’s in there?” Adora asks.</p><p>“Fireball.” When Adora winces, Catra laughs raspily. “What, are you scared?”</p><p>“No,” Adora retorts, her competitive side flaring up, and to prove it she takes the bottle from Catra’s hand and takes a gulp. It burns her throat as it goes down, and she coughs and splutters. </p><p>“What a class act,” Catra jibes. “I bet all the girls at Bright Moon University throw themselves at you.” At her words, Adora focuses suddenly on Catra’s lips, head swimming slightly from the alcohol. The two of them had never kissed, not because Adora didn’t want to, but because she’d feared that she had wanted it too much. When Catra sees where Adora is looking, her eyes darken. The atmosphere of the room shifts as an old ache pools inside of Adora.</p><p>“Catra,” she says, helplessly. Catra’s eyes are alight. Predatory. “Catra, I-”</p><p>“Shut up,” Catra breathes. With a careless flick of her hand, she's pushing Adora down onto the beat-up sofa. Adora falls back against it without resisting, as if under a spell. Catra follows her down onto her lap, her legs folded on either side of Adora's thighs as if she is kneeling reverently. </p><p>"What's the matter?" says Catra, voice soft even as her lips curl up into a cruel, cruel smile. She rolls her hips forward, then back on Adora's lap, arching her back so that her chest is practically in Adora's face. </p><p>"I- ah-" Adora stutters. She sucks in a shaky breath, matched by Catra's quiet gasp when one of Adora's hands brushes against Catra's ass. By instinct her hand shifts, chasing the feeling of her ex-best friend's ass under her fingertips. This draws the first proper moan from Catra. The sound is intoxicating. And now Catra's leaning in, gazing directly at Adora's lips, her own parted just barely. Adora, too, is pulled inevitably to Catra. She closes her eyes in anticipation for that first tumultuous kiss- but Catra stops when her lips are only an inch away from Adora. Adora blinks in surprise.</p><p>"What do you want?" Catra asks, and the question makes something deep inside of Adora burn with sudden heat.</p><p>"Please," says Adora. Catra bares her teeth at that.</p><p>"Say it," she commands, fiercely, as if Adora could ever deny her.</p><p>"I want to kiss you," Adora whispers, plaintive, like they are fourteen again and Adora is in an alternate universe, brave enough to give voice to the desire she’d had for Catra that had only mounted the older they got.</p><p>"That's all?" Catra is amused, now.</p><p>"I- fuck. I- I <em> want. </em>" Adora's right hand is gripping onto the sofa in a desperate attempt to retain self-control.</p><p>"<em> Tell me," </em>Catra challenges, eyes darkly ablaze.</p><p>Adora gives in. "I want you," she admits, and then Catra is upon her, tasting her, biting down on Adora's bottom lip hard enough for Adora's body to jerk up into Catra's arms. Catra's hands don't stop moving, from cupping Adora's face to tangling themselves in Adora's hair to raking lines in Adora's back when Adora flips the two of them over so that Catra is beneath her. Catra's legs interlock on top of Adora's lower back, as if they are broken halves fitting together at last, as if she is greedy for Adora's touch. When Adora pulls away to remove her top, Catra's legs tighten around Adora's midsection. Possessive. Jealous.</p><p>When Adora's turtleneck is completely off, she is arrested by Catra's gaze. Catra's eyes rake in every line of Adora's body hungrily, like she's trying to memorize the taut muscle of Adora's abdomen and the graceful dip of her naked collarbone and--</p><p>"God," Catra murmurs. Adora barely hears it over the echoing pounding music from the floor below. Adora likes that. She likes the arrested expression on Catra's face as Catra drinks her in. She takes off her bra next, growing drunk on victory as she watches Catra's lips part. It's short lived, though, because when <em> Catra </em> strips it's Adora's turn to be enthralled. She's so beautiful, Adora thinks, but doesn't dare to say out loud because she knows it’s too much. </p><p>The second Catra flings her shirt and bra to the floor, Adora is helplessly caught up in <em> want </em>once more, and she catches Catra's hands in her own, forcing them above her head as she kisses her. She rakes her teeth down Catra's neck, sucking at her throat, and Catra moans again, her freed hands once again pulling on Adora's hair. Adora gives her three hickies: each one a reminder to Catra that tonight she was Adora's, and only Adora's. When Adora moves down to Catra's breasts, tongue flicking her nipples, Catra lets out a low, prolonged keen. Adora can feel Catra's chest stuttering. </p><p>"Adora," says Catra, desperate. Adora can hear the need in her voice. She wants Catra. She wants to give Catra everything. Adora rolls off of Catra, spooning her securely, holding her tight. Her free arm snakes down Catra's belly, down under Catra's jeans, over her panties. The fabric is already soaked through in the middle, which sends a bolt of pride into Adora's chest. Adora did that. Adora had made Catra want her as desperately as Adora wanted Catra. She strokes over the fabric, slowly, gently, with one finger, back and forth. She draws shudders from Catra with each movement. </p><p>"Fuck, Adora," Catra begs, "stop… <em> fucking </em>teasing me." Adora obliges. The second her fingers are inside of Catra, her ex-best friend lets out a breath, sounding almost relieved, like Adora has saved her. Adora's fingers hook inward, pressing, and this draws a hazy curse from Catra. One of Catra's hands finds Adora's other arm, enclosing Catra's waist, and moves her hand onto Catra's breast. Adora squeezes it and is rewarded with a moan. They fall into an easy pattern, of Catra grinding down onto Adora's hand like she wants more, more, of Adora giving Catra what she needs, anything, everything, faster, faster, deeper, deeper. </p><p><em> Don't stop, </em>Catra begs, as if Adora would ever want to do anything but. When Catra comes, Adora covers her mouth, not wanting to be overheard. She almost wishes she hadn't, because the way Catra gasps Adora's name as she rides out white waves of pleasure as Adora fucks her is better than anything Adora has ever heard in her entire life.</p><p>When the tension has left Catra's body, Adora slips her hand free from Catra's pants. She sticks her fingers into Catra's mouth and Catra sucks obediently, eyes half lidded. </p><p>"God, Catra, you were so hot," Adora murmurs, a little slurred. Sleepiness is starting to set in from all the alcohol. She could just fall asleep right here with Catra, their limbs fitting together like they were always supposed to, holding each other til morning.</p><p>"Mmm," is Catra's only response. They lay together like that for what seems like only moments before Catra neatly extricates herself from the warm tangle of bodies they were in. The coldness she leaves behind shocks a little sobriety into Adora. “I have to go.”</p><p>“Why?” Adora feels a strange spike of betrayal at the words, which she clamps down on.</p><p>Catra throws her a derisive glare. “Do you really need me to list out reasons? Uh, this is a frat house, I’m not staying here past the party’s end. That sofa was already gross before we had sex on it and I don’t love the idea of sleeping on it. Also, I don’t exactly have a habit of being spooned by my one-night stand til morning.”</p><p>Of course. Adora swallows down traitorous hurt at those words. This was just a one night stand. She’d be stupid to expect anything more. As if she weren’t sleeping around to get over <em> her </em> own relationship. She watches silently as Catra dons her top, smoothing herself down and raking a hand through her pixie cut. Though Catra’s right, something in Adora had broken at her words, and with it the willpower to get off the sofa to compose herself. After the door shuts soundlessly behind her old friend, Adora lays there, breathing, for a few more moments until autopilot kicks in. </p><p>She finds Glimmer laughing out on the balcony with some frat brothers, can of shitty beer in hand. </p><p>“Adora!” she laughs when she sees her. “Come meet these dudes, they’re--” She falters once she notices the expression on Adora’s face.</p><p>“Let’s go home,” Adora says, and Glimmer’s eyes narrow, seeking out the undertones in Adora’s voice. </p><p>“Okay,” Glimmer agrees, affably, but her eyes say <em> We are talking about this when we get back to our dorm. </em>Only one person Adora had ever met had been a more prolific user of doublespeak than Glimmer. </p><p>The night air is bitter and sharp in its coldness. Glimmer shivers, and Adora wordlessly offers her her own jacket. </p><p><em> Aren’t you cold? </em>Glimmer’s voice echoes oddly in Adora’s mind. She shakes her head wordlessly. </p><p>She doesn’t feel anything at all.</p><p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this is my first time explicitly writing smut so if it's trash that's why lmao</p></blockquote></div></div>
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